Healthcare Leads For New Unicorn Counts In January As AI Theme Continues

Eleven startups joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in January, including five from the healthcare sector. Health-related startups that joined included companies working on genetic research, drug development, scanning services, AI agents and in-home healthcare. 

The remaining six new January unicorns hail from multiple sectors, although artificial intelligence impacts the majority of them — driving advances in health, professional services, computer vision, data storage and space technology. 

In December, our unicorn board topped $1 trillion in collective funding raised for the first time. Unicorns are private companies valued at a billion dollars or more, and now total 1,565, per the board.

January’s 11 newcomer count is above the average of nine monthly new unicorns we saw in 2024.

Seven of the 11 new companies are U.S.-based. Three are from Europe: one each from the U.K., Sweden and Switzerland. Asia minted one new unicorn in January, based in India. 

Last month’s youngest new unicorn was 1-year-old Hippocratic AI.

January’s minted unicorns

Here are the 11 newly minted January unicorns, by sector.

Healthcare

• Body-scanning health company Neko Health raised a $260 million Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 7-year old Stockholm-based company was valued at $1.8 billion.
• Healthcare model developer Hippocratic AI raised a $141 million Series B led by Kleiner Perkins. The 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company, which builds AI agents to assist patients, was valued at $1.6 billion.
• Health science research company Aragen Life Sciences raised a $100 million private equity round led by Singapore-based Quadria Capital. The 23-year-old Hyderabad, India-based company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• Genetic database research company Truveta raised a $320 million Series C from public healthcare companies Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Illumina alongside 17 U.S. healthcare providers. The 4-year-old Seattle-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• European home healthcare company Cera raised a $150 million funding part equity and debt led by Chicago-based PE firm BDT & MSD Partners and London-based Schroders Capital. The 8-year-old London-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Data storage

• Data storage company DDN, formerly called DataDirect Networks, raised $300 million in private equity led by New York-based Blackstone Group. The 26-year-old Chatsworth, California-based company was valued at $5 billion.

Recruitment

• Mercor raised a $75 million Series B led by Felicis 1. The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2 billion. It’s a recruiting startup for contract jobs in areas of expertise such as medicine and law required by AI model developers. 

Sales and marketing

• Sales enrichment platform Clay raised a $40 million Series B led by Meritech Capital Partners. The 7-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.25 billion.

Transportation

• Netradyne, a provider of computer vision technology for fleet driver safety and training, raised a $90 million Series D led by Point72 Ventures. The 9-year-old San Diego-based company was valued at $1.35 billion.

Space tech

• Loft Orbital, a space tech company that leases space on its satellites, raised a $170 million Series C led by Axial Partners and Tikehau Capital. The 8-year-old San Francisco-based company, which was founded in Paris, was valued at $1 billion.

Crypto

• Digital asset and crypto bank Sygnum raised a $58 million funding led by bitcoin investor Fulgur Ventures. The 7-year-old Zurich-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Of the current unicorns on the board, about a third — or more than 500 —have not raised funding since 2021, based on a recent Crunchbase analysis. 

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists: 

Related reading:

Methodology

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round. 

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter. 

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board. Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits. 

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration: Dom Guzman